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Comment by another_twist | Hacker News Reader

The people who dont believe in vaccines or that they cause autism dont really get science. Wasting hard work trying to convince them is useless. These people truly are idiots, at best a burden on society and at worse a threat to public health. Its one thing to have a skepticism of the pharmaceutical industry, its not ill founded but if their entire personality is based on denying science I dont think we should waste time or resources in convincing these idiots.

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Most people don’t “get science.” Their trust or not is social.

Or maybe science is a red herring and they're just susceptible to demagoguery and whoever shouts the loudest and simplest.

I'd advocate for skepticism. Sure check every claim, verify what you must. But when theres a mountain of evidence the whole "vaccines bad" thing doesnt hold up. At which point society has to ask - if there's nothing more we can do, why even bother ? the ideology is kinda parasitic too as it actively hurts people who believe in it. Why do this to yourself and others ? Its just inexplicable.

Anyways enough number of people believe in vaccines to have cured a pandemic. I dont think we need bother with a handful whose whole schtick rebelling against useful stuff.

> I dont think we need bother with a handful

I wish I could agree, I'd like nothing more than to let nature take its course with anti-vax people. But the concept of herd immunity [1] tells us that, if enough people refuse to get vaccinated, even if the relative percentage is small, it affects the rest of us as well.

1. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22599-herd-im...

There seems to be something special about vaccines that really sets these people off, and it goes way way back. Vaccine paranoia is as old as vaccines and they’ve always drawn a special ire from believers in naturopathy, natural medicine, faith healing, new thought, and similar strands of thinking.

I don’t quite get it.

Fear of the unknown pairs with magical thinking, like a norm-and-culture destroying iconoclastic cheese and wine.

Honestly, I think a big part of it is fear of needles. Sticking a sharp thing into your body hurts, leaves a bruise, and sometimes makes you feel sick. Those immediate negatives can be hard to weigh against the nebulous benefits of possibly not getting sick months or years from now.

Fear of needles

There are other mechanisms of delivery such as oral vaccines. This is a valid reason, phobias need addressing. But plenty of vaccines are available via oral delivery.

Ive had a bone marrow biopsy done. Those are done fully awake with no anesthetic except for the skin incision.

You literally feel the push of the sharp needle cutting through your bone. Slowly. methodically. Half a millimeter by half millimeter every time the practitioner puts her weight on the needle.

Then, as they aspirate the marrow, you feel as if your balls are being sucked into your hips.

Then, despite the pain, I volunteered to sign up as a bone marrow donor.

Please, call me an idiot if you must, but don't explain away my distrust of vaccines with cowardice.

It’s the whole “forced to take them by the government” that scares them. Ridiculous, since governments have always been trustworthy.

Governments have always been trustworthy?

That was sarcasm

Neither the government nor the pharma industry has done much to maintain their credibility with the people. Drugs have side effects, literally every ad on any news channel will tell you so. Studies are fuzzed. Which is why its important to talk to multiple experts, and look at multiple studies. But for vaccines there have been plenty debunking the link between vaccines and autism.

Forced by the government should be pushed back but not by denying evidence.

Whereas snake oil salesman have traditionally been a beacon of credibility?

That's the biggest thing that gets me.

"I don't trust the authorities, so I'm going to base all my health choices on this random hustler from YouTube and eat horse dewormer."

It's kind of the essence of populism. "I'm too smart to fall for the lies of the authorities, so ... here let me throw my brain totally out the window and follow pure charisma instead."

Some skepticism of the authorities is rational because of course governments are sometimes corrupt and more often incompetent. (Never attribute to malice what can be explained by laziness or stupidity.) Doing some of your own research is good. But why does critical thinking go totally out the window for so many people at that point? And why do people assume that just because someone is "alternative" rather than "mainstream" they have no profit motive? Do people not realize that alt-med and self-help and certain kinds of religious zealotry are all massive industries with their own profit motives just like "big pharma"?

There is no need to treat vaccine scepticism as something special.

Most of the denialism is rooted in the logic of "truth of the world is what you can see and observe". This worked fine for centuries but once there was rapid progress lot of things could no longer be explained through "see and observe". This mostly happened in late 1800s and early 1900s when there was a huge leap in scientific understanding. Lot of scepticism comes from this era. In the conspiracy theory lore - Before 5G was causing COVID, electricity was causing influenza outbreak in late 1800s.

"Natural" or faith healing are thought to be observable facts. You can see a plant growing but not the vaccine produced in a lab.

Couple this with general distrust of governments - monarchy or democracy you have people doubting vaccines.

> In the conspiracy theory lore - Before 5G was causing COVID, electricity was causing influenza outbreak in late 1800s.

Wow. Any book/paper recommendations ? Fascinating stuff.

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